JUNE 25, 2002

A strange coincidence

IT is probably just a coincidence but a few days after the hugely-expensive Lausitzring declared itself insolvent, the man who paid for most of the facility, Manfred Stolpe, the Minister-President of the German state of Brandenburg, has quit his job to make for a younger man. Stolpe is 66 but said that it was time he handed over to a new generation and proposed that the Mayor of Potsdam Matthias Platzeck replace him. Stolpe had been in charge of Brandenburg since the collapse of Communism in 1990.

The Brandenburg government is believed to have invested $150m in the project with the aim being to attract the German Grand Prix away from Hockenheim...